TheFutureParty
A Community-based Media Company
After a week of bad press, Meta has seemingly deleted its nonhuman chatbot profiles from Instagram that quietly rolled out in 2023… signaling a potential retreat from its plan to offer a community of AI users. Why It Hits: Meta has been trying to find a way to make chatbots across its social media ecosystem a thing to […]
Platforms such as Partiful and Timeleft are using their apps as a jumping off point to get people to meet IRL… and they’re finally taking off in popularity. The Big Picture: Plenty has been written about how social media has made people more connected than ever, but also lonelier than ever. While there’s been many benefits of creating digital communities, people […]
Software company Flipboard is set to unveil an app next year called Surf that connects platforms across the fediverse (the open, social web that Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and others are a part of) in customizable and interactive feeds. The Big Picture: Fediverse CEO Mike McCue is betting that the future of social media will not be about walled-garden […]
While direct-to-streaming movies dominated the COVID years in a rush to catch up with Netflix’s original library, it turns out that releasing movies in theaters is really the best way to capture the most engagement when it lands on a streamer. The Big Picture: A lot of money was spent to ramp up production during […]
Snapchat is getting ready for TikTok’s impending exit from the US with a unified creator-monetization program for its Stories and Spotlight features. Why It Hits: TikTok’s ban will leave a hole in the social media and creator economy ecosystem. Prepare for Snapchat, YouTube, and Instagram to wage an all-out war for cultural dominance… and advertiser dollars. Behind the […]
BuzzFeed sold First We Feast, the studio behind the popular Hot Ones interview series, for $82.5 million to a group of investors that will let the company run as an independent media company. The Big Picture: BuzzFeed has been hungry to find a buyer for First We Feast to pay down its substantial debt and swat away investor Vivek Ramaswamy’s […]
LA Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong announced the paper is working on a “bias meter” that would give readers context of any bias in articles and potentially give people a version of the article from an opposite perspective. The Big Picture: With the mainstream media losing trust — fairly or unfairly — among so many Americans, publishers are looking […]
A panel of three federal judges unanimously ruled against TikTok’s free-speech lawsuit that hoped to overturn the divest-or-ban bill… putting TikTok on a path of being shut down in the US on January 19th on national security concerns. Why It Hits: The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed in April, makes it illegal for app stores […]
A 28-year-old UK Instagrammer named Benji has gained virality — and the attention of snack conglomerates — for fooling the internet time and again with fake food flavors that are just interesting or wild enough to be real, potentially. Why It Hits: Satire has been around forever, but the internet has turned it into a bonafide way for […]
YouTube’s annual top trending list shows MrBeast reigns supreme, Kendrick Lamar really rules the airwaves, and Shorts captures the zeitgeist of a very specific moment. The Big Picture: YouTube’s list reveals that while some creators remain stars of the platform, trending topics ebb and flow to match the biggest cultural events. Between the Videos: Ranking as one of the […]